A federal appeals court remands a patent infringement lawsuit between Smith & Nephew and Kinetic Concepts Inc. back to a lower court in Texas, saying the judge there didn't give enough weight to the jury's ruling.

UPDATE August 13, 3:50 p.m. EDT with comment from Smith & Nephew.

A federal judge in Texas erred when he failed to give enough weight to a jury's finding in a patent infringement case between Smith & Nephew (FTSE:SN, NYSE:SNN) and Kinetic Concepts Inc., according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which sent the case back to Jude Royal Furgeson for reconsideration.

In October 2010, Furgeson ruled portions of 2 KCI patents invalid in the U.S. District Court for Western Texas, despite the jury's ruling in March 2010 that Smith & Nephew's Renasys F negative-pressure wound therapy device violates a pair of patents owned by Wake Forest University and licensed to KCI.

But the Federal Circuit found that SNN failed to prove that the KCI patents were invalid on obviousness grounds, according to court documents.